Kaizer Chiefs striker Wandile Duba scored a hat-trick against TS Galaxy in the Carling Knockout, his first in senior football, ending a four-year wait for the South African club.
Wandile Duba needed less than a half to write his way into recent Kaizer Chiefs history. The striker scored a hat-trick against TS Galaxy in the Carling Knockout, a knockout competition, according to Flashscore.com. His three goals came in the space of 18 minutes, making it his first hat-trick in senior football.
The club had been waiting four years for this. The last hat-trick by a Chiefs player dated back to October 2022, scored by Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana, a former club striker, against Stellenbosch FC.
A ninth hat-trick since 2007/08
Duba’s performance is no small feat at club level. According to Flashscore.com, it is the ninth hat-trick by a Kaizer Chiefs player since the 2007/08 season. Bimenyimana’s hat-trick against Stellenbosch was unusual in nature: three penalties, a first in the PSL era.
Duba’s is also the Chiefs’ first in this knockout competition since the one scored by former player Marks Maponyane in 1987, against Rangers in the BP Top 8 final. Flashscore.com does not specify the final score or the outcome of the match against TS Galaxy.
26 hat-tricks, but a long walk through the desert
The picture of Chiefs hat-tricks in the PSL era, launched in 1996/97, shows the scale of the phenomenon: 26 in total, 17 of them in the first 11 seasons and only 9 since. Six of those hat-tricks, nearly a quarter, were scored in the very first PSL season.
Former striker Pollen Ndlanya leads the standings with four hat-tricks. Twenty players in total have achieved the feat for the Chiefs, with Duba the most recent. Kaizer Motaung Jnr, Collins Mbesuma and John Moshoeu each scored two hat-tricks in the PSL era. Four players have even scored four goals in a match: Ndlanya, Mark Williams, Lehlohonolo Majoro and Bernard Parker, according to Flashscore.com.
The club has also been through a long drought: its longest spell without a hat-trick lasted four seasons, from 2007/08 to 2010/11, before Lehlohonolo Majoro’s four-goal haul against Black Leopards in the Nedbank Cup. Bloemfontein Celtic are the team that has conceded the most Chiefs hat-tricks, three over the years, again according to Flashscore.com.
What next in the Carling Knockout
This hat-trick ends four years without one for the Chiefs. The club now continues its run in the Carling Knockout, after an evening marked by Wandile Duba’s performance against TS Galaxy.